In a conversation with the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, illustrated in advance as a serious discussion of global migration and U.S. immigration policy, Trump offered up a wild charge: that governments not just in South America but around the world have been emptying their prisons and shipping criminals to the United States under President Biden. That’s a bold statement, but mentioning the Congo got people talking online.
“The Congo in Africa. There have been a lot of people from the Congo. I don’t know what that is, but they came out of the Congo,” he said, with not so much as a pause for explanation.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, yes, that’s a real place. It is one of the largest countries on the African continent but plays an outsized role on the world stage regarding natural resources, especially those used in electric vehicle batteries and smartphones. One would think that anyone even near a conversation about a U.S. investment worth billions would at least know what the place is. But Trump, speaking from the White House, boldly confessed... uh-uh.
Twitter/X had a ball. Many critics and observations, people alike, wondered how a former president and current presidential candidate had become so cavalier or simply unaware that a country in his administration had once pursued a considerable investment. It’s like saying you’re investing in a band without knowing what kind of music they play or where they’re from.
But Trump doubled down, as always. “And all around the world, they were coming in,” he said. “Venezuela, virtually all of their prisoners came into our country … we had a very incompetent administration that was called the Biden administration. And imagine what they’ve done to our country, I was elected to straighten that out.”
Now look, whether you agree with his policies or not, this moment was awkward. Being tough on immigration is one thing, but it is another to stumble over the basic facts in front of another world leader and in a room where history is made.
While some of Mr. Trump’s backers shrugged it off as “Trump being Trump,” critics describe it as the latest example of why international diplomacy may not suit him. And if the U.S. is moving toward a multi-billion dollar partnership with Congo, someone might want to slip the man a map or at least a Wikipedia printout.
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